Well, from a veterans outreach program in Mercer County to a new pumper truck for Wildwood Fire Department, New Jersey is losing out on more than $200 million that were slated for community projects funded by the federal government.

The earmarks are requested by Congress members for spending projects in their districts during the budget process.

But they were slashed, along with thousands of others across the country in the GOP stopgap spending bill President Trump signed into law last week.

Our Washington DC correspondent Ben Hulac, looked into the bill to see just how many projects New Jersey lost and joins me now.

Ben, great reporting.

First of all, talk to me about the types of projects we named a couple, but it seemed to me and going through your data, a lot of stormwater and flood resiliency projects that communities were planning on and now they're not going to get.

Right.

So I would say flooding and really anything to do with water pretty as treatment of US chemicals, those forever chemicals.

That was another common theme replacement of lead pipes that have been underground for for ages was another common motif in these these chunks of money.

But I would also underscore that this is money that states, state governments, city governments, tribal governments nationwide, along with nonprofits, had requested and expected for a whole year.

The whole earmark process really kicks off each spring.

So this is money that people had applied for through their member of Congress back in the spring and might have been banking on coming home for them right about now.

And now they're out of luck.

I mean, we're talking a couple of hundred projects in New Jersey alone.

Were there districts that lost more than others that were banking on this.

Really that state lost?

Overall, it's a bit tricky to break down, particularly where a project cut will be felt most.

A lot of these projects, some of them to your point, are very specific.

A Well, for a town or a fire truck or money for a police department in a given county.

But a lot of these projects, especially in South Jersey, are more regional.

FEMA money, for example, would have really come in handy for Jeff, Andrew and Chris Smith's districts.

They both got big earmarks from FEMA to deal with flooding in their in their districts.

But of course, that's all this is a moot point, really, because it's all gone.

I mean, you bring up an interesting point.

These are earmarks, earmarks that are lost not just for I mean, we have a majority Democratic representation in Congress, but also our three Republican members.

And the money that they were promising to bring home for their constituents.

So how is that playing?

This it's interesting.

There really isn't a political breakdown or any clear ideological divide on earmarks.

People who dislike earmarks typically dislike them because they view it as some form of government corruption.

Earmarks about a decade ago were in a different form.

You could get an earmark for corporations.

That has now changed their more disclosure rules around earmarks.

But this affects everyone and the members who did not get earmarks are the newer members like McConnell, LaMonica, McIvor, Herb Conaway and Lee Power, who all came to Congress recently.

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned this whole earmarks process.

Change was sort of revived in a new form.

A lot of folks thought of it as more pet projects previously.

But I mean, when looking through your list of items that you noted for New Jersey, a lot of these seemed like items that maybe these communities can't really do without.

Or at least they're they're they're not frivolous.

I would say that's probably a better way to think about it.

It's fairly basic stuff for food, bank money, money for hospitals, money for health clinics, policing, fire.

It's sort of the core civic items that keep government running.

And now, of course, with other federal cuts coming out of Washington and maybe some cuts at the state level, this is money that really could have come in handy and now has vanished.

Is there anything that we should take from this in terms of how we prepare for the Trump administration to unveil their own budget plan and the types of cuts that might be included?

I think the best analog for what's happening now happened in 2017, and that's when the first Trump administration came in and proposed deep cuts across the board to health programs, environmental programs, transportation.

That is probably that is roughly where we are now time wise.

The federal budget budget process will start playing out really seriously this summer.

I don't know how much the earmarks tell us, but this was more of a casualty of the of the budget process and time.

Congress simply ran out of time last week to keep the government open and cutting earmarks was the choice they made.

And I would also point out the three Republican members in New Jersey all had earmarks in this underlying bill and underlying legislation, I sense, I should say.

And they all voted to pass the C.R., the continuing resolution to keep the government running.

So they voted against projects that they had worked to get folded into law, which is interesting.

Yeah.

As you say, they had to make a choice and they did.

Ben Hulac for us, you can find Ben's reporting on this on our website NJSpotlightNews.org.

Ben, thanks for coming up.

Of course.